Friday, June 28, 2013

Verreaux's Tree Frogs at My Coles Creek Property

About 2 weeks ago I heard a different sound not far from the main dam close to the house. At first I thought that it could be a cricket. Over the next week or so I heard the call regularly and it was coming from the same general area, which made me think it was more likely to be a frog. I knew for certain that it was a different type of frog to any that I have heard on the property, if it was a frog. I only heard 3 individuals calling out on any given night and they have continued to call out up until last night. A few nights ago it was only 4 degrees here at about 3 in the morning and I heard it calling still!!

This frog began calling out after the 100mm of rain that we had a few weeks ago made the dam flood again. I have lived here for 3 years nearly and I'm surprised after all this time another new frog species turned up. That takes the total number of frogs seen at this property in the time I have lived here to 26 and 17 of those have been seen and photographed for the blog this year.

After I was certain that it was a frog I rang a friend to help me look for it. We both looked for it very carefully and we managed to get a few recordings of its call and we got a few nice pictures as well. It was very slow moving when we found it, which was no surprise as it was quite cold the night we looked for it.

I am sure by the look of it and its call that it is a Verreaux's Tree Frog but they are not meant to be found this far north. I live just south of Gympie which is 300 km north or so of their range. Apparently they are just found over the Queensland border and south. This shows that there range does extend further north than any of the distribution maps show.


Verreaux's Tree Frog from the left side
 

Verreaux's Tree Frog from the left side again
 

Verreaux's Tree Frog from above
 

Verreaux's Tree Frog from the right side
 

Verreaux's Tree Frog from the right side again


Verreaux's Tree Frog
 
 
This is a recording of the Verreaux's Tree Frog  calling. The call of the Verreaux's Tree Frog starts at about 5 seconds into the video.
 
 

 
 
A few nights ago when I was down towards Elanda Point I heard another frog calling out that I couldn't identify for certain by its call. It sounded familiar but I don't think it is a frog I get on my property. I looked for these frogs for about an hour but couldn't find them. I am pretty sure they were beneath the ground calling. There were 4 individuals calling out within the small area where they were heard. This is the recording of the frog at Elanda Point calling.
 
 
 
 
More pics and updates when more frogs are photographed and recorded.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Ashley,
    Very jealous of your new frog find! I haven't come across that species either but good ID. I may enquire further about it's occurrence up your way and see if that is indeed odd. I've just read too that SE QLD populations of Litoria verreauxii breed during winter, which you may already know. Neat photos too!

    As for what that other species you recorded calling is, it may either be Pseudophryne raveni or Uperoleia fusca. Hard to be sure when their calls are so similar!

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  2. First call on video 1 5 seconds in is litoria fallax and the second video frog call is litoria euwingi i think that is the correct spelling

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